Interurban trolley was the height of local rail travel

The interurban station was located at the corner of Pacific and Colby avenues. This photo was taken August of 1934. Note the advertisement attached to the cattle guard for Playland, a popular amusement park at Bitter Lake.

Wouldn't it be great if you could hop on a quick, modern rail system and ride from Everett to Lynnwood and Seattle? Amazingly, people could do that a century ago, when the Interurban trolley carried passengers through growing communities in north King and south Snohomish counties.

The Interurban operated from 1910 to 1939, when highways and automobiles made it seem obsolete. The trolley cars were unceremoniously dumped, and the rails were mostly torn up.

Now you can travel the Interurban Trail by bicycle, and you can see a restored Interurban trolley car at Heritage Park in Alderwood Manor. But a convenient rail system from Everett to Seattle? That's decades in the future -- and decades in the past.

Read about the Interurban's history in this 2010 Herald story about its 100th anniversary, and check out a gallery of Interurban photos here.

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